The Inwardness of Things considers Joseph Conrad as a modern voice in an ancient and enduring quarrel between the poets and the philosophers. Beginning from the polemical poetics of his 1897 preface, Debra Romanick Baldwin focuses on Conrad's distinctively poetic 'inward' approach to truth
an inwardness that is found in lived experience, in language, and in the world beyond the individual.
The book traces Conrad's poetic voice from the rhetoric of his private letters to the narrative techniques of his fiction and finally to his explicit engagement with abstract approaches to truth. Baldwin applies narrative and rhetorical analysis to Conrad's private correspondence, showing how he encouraged fellow writers
John Galsworthy, Warrington Dawson, R.B. Cunninghame Graham, Ted Sanderson, and Edward Noble
to engage with the inwardness of their own experience. The book explores how Conrad crafted moments of narrative solidarity in his fictional narratives to evoke the experience of the inwardness of another, while also considering his explicit polemics against abstract approaches to truth-seeking.
Mindful of the colonial, late Victorian, Polish Romantic, and cosmopolitan contexts in which Conrad wrote, The Inwardness of Things nevertheless situates him in a broader human conversation that he himself invited and argues for the enduring value of his art.
By:
Debra Baldwin Imprint: University of Toronto Press Country of Publication: Canada Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 25mm
Weight: 1g ISBN:9781487558055 ISBN 10: 1487558058 Pages: 320 Publication Date:15 December 2024 Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format:Hardback Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Debra Romanick Baldwin is an associate professor of English at the University of Dallas.
